Violets are blue
by Simple-physics1895
Summary: MI6 Agent Violet Hunter was discharged from duty due to a severe injury she will never really heal from, put in 221b with her boss's little brother to recover. She has gotten used to Sherlock and John when a series of bombings and an array of haunting spray painted messages lead Sherlock to believe Moriarty is somehow alive, but for Violet it means something much more personal.
1. graffiti

**_IMMEDIATE DISCHARGE FROM DUTY_**

**Admiral Violet Hunter/ Agent 003:**

**It has come to the attention of the Board of National Security that you have acquired several severe injuries during your most recent mission, greatly affecting your ability to function during field work.**

**Therefore the Board has come to a conclusion that you shall be temporarily suspended from field work on account of said injury.**

**However, for the duration and recovery of your time off, you are to reside at 221b Baker Street, City of Westminister, London, until you are declared fit for active duty.**

**It is our deepest regret to inform you this arrangement shall become permanent if you are unable to heal properly.**

**Wishing you a speedy recovery,**

**M. Holmes**

* * *

Leave it to Mycroft to know how to fire a girl in the prettiest packaging possible.

John had willingly accepted Violet back into their lives (they'd met once before - on what John had entitled 'The Adventure of the Copper Beeches' involving Violet's last attempt at a side job, a sniper, a child with a disproportionately large head and a fat man with an temper more legendary than Sherlock's) but both Sherlock and Violet had known this was Mycroft's indirect way of setting them up.

His plan soon proved to fail when he realised she was on self-administered bed rest and could barely move to save her life, and the only thing she did even remotely close to getting out of bed was hyperventalating and physically holding her internal organs in place.

He'd also lost one of his best agents when, four months after Violet had deduced it with a face devoid of any emotion, the doctors had agreed she would never fully recover.

But she healed enough to get out of bed and join Sherlock and John on a few legwork cases. Even a severely injured ex-MI6 Admiral, she was faster than Sherlock and an easy match to John's aim.

She still wore her tags sometimes. There was something therapeutic about listening to them clink whenever she moved. She was proud of the fact that she was part of the double O's, even if she had been discharged for potential death. It was a rank, something you never let go of. Something John understood much better than Sherlock ever would.

* * *

**Violet Hunter**

**Sherlock Holmes**

**John Watson**

**Mycroft Holmes**

**Violet Hunter Admiral V. Hunter, agent 003. discharged from MI6 for serious injury**

**Age: 31**

**Occupation: -none-**

**location- 221b Baker Street City of Westminister London**

* * *

John placed his hands flat on Violet's stomach, tracing her scars with delicate fingers. By the door, Sherlock was pacing, then whining, then moping. He was so bloody impatient, didn't he see John was giving her a mandatory checkup?

Violet winced as he applied a little more pressure and began to get impatient as well. "If anything happens Sherlock can carry me or something." She protested. "And nothing will happen."

"You know, I find it very ironic that the War veteran is more concerned about this than the Detective and the only female in the flat combined, John."

"The bomber is getting awaaayyyy... JAAAWWWWWNNNNNNN..."

"JESUS, You two!" John stood abruptly, and Violet was up like a shot, halfway out the door with Sherlock. "Fine, go! Have fun! Good riddance!"

By the time he'd finished shouting out a couple more suggestions, Violet and Sherlock were already hailing a cab.

"He never resists when you say his name like that." Violet giggled, pulling her coat more securely around her shoulders and adjusting her cowl.

* * *

Jim wandered around to the back of the church, shaking his spray paint bottle to the tune of 'The Thieving Magpie'. It was so poetic, what he was doing. reuniting them and whatnot. He should really leave more anonymous clues to Sherlock, it was fun watching him decide if it was him or not.

He paused, with the can raised to the old brick wall, and it occured to him he had no idea what to paint.

* * *

As expected, the building blew up as soon as they reached it. It wasn't that much of a loss - the building was slated to be torn down in weeks - But Sherlock swore loudly before plunging into the smoky darkness, his coattails the only thing guiding her through the dark.

Something bright and complicated caught her eye and she backpedaled. "Sherlock!" She called. "Get back here!"

She heard Sherlock approaching, coming up behind her as she walked toward the only portion of the house that had remained standing, staring at the words in gradual understanding and horror. Sherlock began to ask her what was wrong before he saw the familiar handwriting and fell silent.

_**HELLO SEXY**_

_**JMxx**_

* * *

When he was finished, Jim tossed the can behind him, drew his hood and aviators up against the rain and for the sake of being a badass and skipped back to the current scene. A crowd was gathering, people caught in the blast being dragged away. He could see Sherlock's tall, lanky figure and curly head above them and someone else beside him, with short, brown hair that looked like it was the very defenition of bedhead.

James Moriarty stopped cold. Then he pushed forward to get a better look.

Just as Sherlock tapped the girl's arm and led her off behind the wreckage, he caught a glimpse of her face.

_Oh._

Jim blinked, absorbing this interesting piece of information.

_Well._

He grinned and began to walk away from the crowd, wrapping his earbuds around his iPod and shoving it in his pocket.

_This could get interesting._

He rolled his shoulders and cracked his knuckles, ready to take on whatever this brilliant adventure coming on the horizon had for him.

_This could get very interesting._

He retraced his steps, picking up the spray paint bottle and shaking it. He walked to the most appropriate place he could think of -it wasn't far- cleared it out (Jimmy style) and began spraying the second clue.

He snapped the bottle shut with a satisfying click and frisbeed it into the forhead of someone who was still conscious, leaving behind the haunting message he hadn't thought of in years, in a place only one person would look.

**_Hello_ _flower_.**

* * *

**Well hello there, Sherlockians!**

**My first fic turned out so well I thought I'd write something completely made up and from my own mind. Seriously, from what I've planned, shit really gets real in this.**


	2. Deduction and deception

No, no, no, no, _no_.

Impossible. Wasn't it?

apparently not.

"It's Moriarty, isn't it?" Violet asked him in a strangled voice. Or maybe she was speaking normally and it was him who had the hearing problem. Sherlock's vision blurred in and out of focus, the message on the brick wall permanently burned into his mind. It was like Jim's face replacing Dr Franklin's in the Hollow that night, unexpected and the thing he feared most.

Jim had survived.

Then again, so had he. They'd both tricked each other, certain the other would die or was already dead. Jim had probably laughed when he found out Sherlock had had a little plan of his own. But he had to remain rational. There had only been five people to hear those words (himself, Lestrade, John, Moriarty and the woman in the car) and none but Moriarty had any ulterior motive of any kind. He didn't know it was Moriarty.

But he didn't know it wasn't either.

"I think so." He said, his voice hoarse. He cleared his throat and forced himself shakily to his feet. "but I don't know if it really is. I saw the bullet go through his head, Vi, I saw him die with a smile on his face. I didn't miss anything."

"That's what John said." Violet looked up at him seriously, her eyes matching the shade of the fog. "And look at you."

"We'll have to be careful. Text John and tell him to get to the Yard." Sherlock risked a glance around the corner to memorize the type of paint used and froze.

The message had been painted over to match the exact colour of the bricks. "Tell him..."

There weren't any doubts now. This was either Moriarty or one of his henchmen. A sniper he'd met at Copper Beeches, Sebastian Moran, was at the top of the list, and after that there were no other suspects.

"... Tell him that Moriarty's back," He added neutrally.

* * *

At Scotland Yard, things were slowly but surely falling apart.

Sally's officers were either too drunk or hung over from celebrating someone's wedding to be of any use but slow down everyone who were rather chaotically working on the case he'd put Sherlock on hours ago, the Superintendent was due in the afternoon for help on a case Lestrade had instantly regretted asking for, since Sherlock could probably solve it in five minutes flat, and Richenbach hero himself had yet to swing by, practically kiss Lestrade on both cheeks with glee and loudly detail the closure of yet another case involving explosions.

"Sir!" A young redheaded (and extremely bedheaded) intern popped up beside him, ducking under someone moving a desk to accomodate someone else moving a filing cabinet. Right, the quick one, what was her name? "The Superintendent is downstairs, and I'm the only one not on duty right now, what sould I do with him?" She was young and her voice was straight Irish, her numerous freckles accenting her hair. Sandra or something of the like.

"I don't know!" The DI tossed up his hands. "Go tell him to piss off and come back when the homicide division is socially acceptable."

"I take it I'm meant to censor it, Sir?" She asked, amused.

"As much as possible. Off you ..." Lestrade saw over her shoulder Sherlock was talking to the Superintendent with that straight, sarcastic face he made when he was deducing someone. Loudly. "You know what, I think it was just taken care of. Carry on."

The spooky short girl that he saw with Sherlock a lot lately, Violet, and John were pulling Sherlock towards Lestrade, ignoring him as he shot a few more deductions about the state of the Superintendent's parentage at him before Violet broke down and started to laugh.

John, ever the soldier, was rolling his eyes. Lestrade wove his way through the crowd to meet them. "Anything?"

Sherlock walked straight up to him, barely looking him in the eye as he dodged the DI and continued along briskly. "We need access to all the cases even remotely related to Moriarty, every drug dealed, every partner he's ever had. Anyone with him during a crime, anybody at all. Get me everything you can on James Moriarty."

Lestrade blinked, bewildered. He looked questioningly to John, who was more often than not his translator from Sherlockspeak to English.

"Moriarty's been dead for years." Lestrade said in confusion.

John merely shook his head. The lines under his eyes seemed more pronounced, and his shoulders were definetly sagging more. "On the last building that got bombed, someone left a message." He turned his worried gaze to Violet and Sherlock as they rummaged through a filing cabinet under Sally Donovan's suspicious eyes. "Moriarty left a message."

"Well, we don't know it was him if it's just a message. What did it say?"

" 'Hello Sexy'." John answered grimly.

Lestrade was about to ask him how in any way that was related to James Moriarty when he remembered. 221c. Sherlock holding a pink iPhone. The crying woman.

Well, shit.

* * *

"Drugs. Drugs. Murder. Serial killing. Sponsored serial raping. Drugs. More murder. sniper. sniper. drugs again." Violet flicked through her pile, staring at the pages and pages of human misery caused by this maniac. "Moriarty, Moriarty, Moriarty." Her eyes came to rest on a portrait of the Consulting Criminal, frowning at his wide brown eyes and innocent candid smile.

Sherlock took no notice, until he checked again and realised she hadn't moved at all, still staring at the photo. "Violet?"

"Um, nothing." She abruptly set it down and covered it with a pile of case files. She blinked more after that, and her breathing pattern was strict and even, like she was concentrating on it too hard.

Sherlock let her go that time, but it wouldn't be long before he asked. Or deduced before that. Everyong had a tell, and while Violet was good at lying in tight situations, she had an odd inability to hide when she was lying to Sherlock or John. She scratched her waist or her face went completely smooth.

"Do you want to tell me something?" He asked idly, scanning the pages for Sebastian Moran.

"No." She answered after a second. Oh, yeah, she was lying. "Nothing."

"Because your heart rate just jumped a mile and you're displaying every sign that you're keeping something from me."

Violet blinked her wide, silver eyes and continued staring at the pages, now a meaningless jumble of letters and images. Her skinny shoulders moved and she took in a breath, about to explain.

"Anything?"

John walked between them, looking in that expectant way at Sherlock. He ignored the doctor and continued boring his eyes into Violet's.

She turned away and answered John's question when Sherlock didn't. "Sherlock's looking for the associate Sebastian Moran, the sniper that was trying to kill Alice Kingston at the Copper Beeches." She said, naming the woman she had been unconsciously impersonating. "He was in the army with you, I'm fairly certain, and I haven't found anything of use at all."

"Something's bothering her about the photograph in her pocket. Find it and I won't keep anything in the fridge for a month." Sherlock added. Violet instantly crossed her arms, glaring at him.

"Didn't mummy ever tell you it's not smart to provoke people who have had seven years of brutal training on how to kill people silently with nothing but their bare hands, Sherly?" She said dangerously, glaring at him.

"Um, I think I might have missed something here -" John began, but Sherlock cut him off evenly, his eyes trained on Violet.

"I'm fairly certain that, if the lives of many oblivious residents of London and perhaps all three tenants of 221b and much more are at stake, there is a certain exception, given the fact you're obviously hiding something that was clearly related to Moriarty at one point or another." He stood to his full height, looking at her with glittering glacier green eyes.

"Spare me the details, Sherlock." Violet said scathingly. "They hardly matter over something like this."

* * *

John was thoughroughly confused, but his mood was slowly turning to adgitation, then irritation. Violet and Sherlock were off on one of their fast-paced, encrypted arguents only they could understand, but since they clearly held so much meaning you couldn't help but try to understand them by simply looking back and forth between the two helplessly. It reminded him disturbingly of Irene Adler and Sherlock's conversation in the front room of 221b, without any of the flirting.

"Shall we put that little statement to the test, Miss Hunter?" Sherlock replied in a tone ringing with malice. It would have sounded like a threat if he hadn't been smirking ever so slightly.

"Be my guest, Mr Holmes." Violet was glaring up at him with a genuinely angry expression- she clearly was giving him every sign to _piss off now._

"Sherlock, I don't think that innapropriate deductions are the best thing to be doing right now -"

"Since you were staring at the photograph of Moriarty for so long with such an expression of confusion, you were remembering something. Something related to him, but it's clear you didn't know he was Mortiarty in the first place, you've never seen any photos of him. Someone from your past, perhaps, before MI6, before anything really happened that changed your life. Aesthetic coincedence? Not a chance, given Mr Moriarty's rather unique facial structure and brow line, along with an interesting Irish lilt to his voice that would be impossible to mistake even for a complete idiot." Sherlock reached into the back pocket of Violet's jeans and pulled out the photograph while John watched in horror as Violet's expression darkened further with every word Sherlock said. "And, if you'll allow my being quite blunt to this little experiment, his first name, as I'm sure you've never been told, is _James._"

Violet looked at him for a long second, an expression lingering at confusion crossing her face. Sherlock stooped and held his face level to hers, gauging her reaction with narrow eyes.

"Well, if you're trying to get a reaction out of me, that's no way to do it." She muttered darkly before turning on her heel and walking around John to the exit.

Sherlock stared after her like he was trying to remember something, but she had disappeared.

"What the bloody hell was all that about?" John demanded, marching around to face Sherlock.

"This." the photograph he had taken from her pocket floated to the floor. "And information."

John scoffed. "_Information_? What could you have possibly gained from that little exchange of words?"

* * *

Sherlock was slow to reply, watching the street below as Violet walked around a corner and disappeared.

"I think... We had better keep a closer eye on Violet, John."

"Why?"

"Because this time around, it's different." His eyes slipped from where he'd last seen Violet and to the city as a whole. He smiled. "This time around, I'm ready. I'm ready, Jim. Aren't you coming out to play?"

* * *

**OOOOOOH OMINOUS MUSIC IS PLAYING RIGHT NOW OOOOOOOOOOH**

**this is the second chapter to my Violets are blue story. **

**SHIT GETS REAL IN THE NEXT CHAPTER.**


	3. idle threats

Violet walked with the awkward hop-step she took on whenever her the burning pain in her waist started to spike up. She walked wherever Sherlock wasn't, which was basically anywhere but Scotland Yard.

And that left London.

It was just after noon, by the look of the restaurants, and she briefly considered getting something to eat.

Nah. She had a feeling it would come back up.

She didn't really want to know anything at the moment, Sherlock among them. And James.

James.

She hadn't seen him in years, but there was practically no mistaking him. She was bloody kidding herself. There was even that faint little scar under his ear he'd recieved as a kid.

But... He couldn't be Moriarty. But it was completely plausible, given the last words he'd ever said to her. She hadn't seen him for about eight years, and even then he'd always been that weird little shit who lived a couple streets down. They had been friends, and then suddenly more and then he'd left her. rather abruptly.

She had turned over the thought in her mind a few times. James Moriarty. Moriarty wasn't the most common name, but it wasn't at the bottom of the list either. It had only taken the one word, his name, that confirmed the little nagging thought that her childhood best friend had in fact turned into a complete and utter psychopath with a disturbing obsession with a certain curly-headed sociopath.

She sat down on a bench on the emptiest street she could find, staring into the fog that was gathering and trying to clear her head. She had to go home at some point, this was just a weird little row between her and Sherlock that would serve as pouring lemon juice on an open bullet wound for the duration of the case and then it would be over. Done. Sherlock and her would agree unanimously to forget this ever happened.

There were still a few lingering pedestrians, and when she opened her eyes there was only one.

"Hello, Vi."

She closed her eyes again and reached for the gun in her back pocket, pressing it to her temple. Why didn't she just forget now instead of later?

James pouted and walked forward, his smile more evident as their proximity was increased. "Aw, come on. Don't be like that. You remember me, don't you?"

She looked up at him, not smiling, as he took the gun from head and put it back in her pocket. "Of course I do, although it's come to my attention you've made some rather negative changes in the world since."

He gave that childish, lopsided grin of his and sat down beside her. Aside form the natural changes that come with age, he was exactly the way she'd left him. His hair was considerably neater than it was eight years ago, and he seemed to be favoring westwood instead of ragged collared shirts, jeans and that blasted aviator jacket she'd begged him to wash for two years straight.

They stayed in tense silence for a while - well, she stayed in tense silence. She was sure he was feeling completely at ease, she remembered that much about him. He was beaming at her as if it was another one of their many late night chats.

She shook off the memory and hissed between clenched teeth. "Why are you here?" Violet said in a hostile voice.

Jim sighed, slapping his hands down onto his knees. "Right to the point then. Can't I drop in on my best friend anymore?"

"Not anymore, at least."

"Why? what happened?"

"Moriarty happened." She said darkly. "Before, you were that weird jumped-up little Irish git that followed me around." Ignoring his burst of laughter, she stormed on. "Before, you weren't criminal mastermind. Where have you been for eight years?"

He paused before continuing, gazing out into the fog with an expression that seemed halfway to pleased and halfway to neutral. "... Enjoying." He said finally, savoring the word.

"Enjoying." She reapeated sarcastically.

"... Oh, you were looking for specifics?" He glanced back at her and drew a cigarette from his pocket. "You still smoke? You were always so clean about it, it took years for me to figure it out."

She shook her head. "I had to quit for training."

"Oh, that's right, Admiral Violet Hunter. Agent 003." Jim smiled mischeviously, replacing the cigarette in his pocket. "Sorry I wasn't there for your coronation."

"You didn't answer me."

"Enjoying? Oh, my dear. Where to begin?" Jim leaned back, moving a little closer to her and putting an arm across her shoulders. It was the most natural thing in the world when she put her head down onto his arm. "I've enjoyed coming out on top for once. I've enjoyed playing little games with Sherlock, playing gay. Lately I've been terribly bored and I thought I'd get in touch with him for something to finish this. I've a few ideas in mind, but I thought I'd just wing it this time around."

Violet listened, mute. What had _happened_ to him? When did talking about forcing a man into faking his own death as fun become casual for him? She remembered his expression eight years ago as he'd kissed her cheek and left her, calling her something he never had before.

"What about Sebastian?" She fiddled around with her mobile, tapping out Sherlock's number by braille and switching it to speaker phone, disguising it with a subtle shift of weight to lean further into him, disgusted with herself when she allowed him to rest his chin on the crown of her head and sort of enjoyed it. "He almost killed me at the Copper Beeches, I'm not sure if you knew that or not."

"I knew it was you. I didn't want to intervene that much, so I attended the party Sherlock threw to draw Sebby out. Also snuck a peek of you two snogging in a doorway. Very clever of Sherlock, to hide your face like that as he passed." Jim's voice went flat. She looked up at him.

"Jim?"

"How is 221b getting along, anyway? It seems we've fallen out of touch." Jim turned towards her, looking her full in her eyes, studying her.

"You're not getting anywhere near either of them." despite the fact that she was snuggled into his shoulder, Violet's voice was full of harsh contempt.

"Okay! Okay!" Jim raised his hands in a surrender position, leaving a cold, empty feeling along the nape of her neck and shoulders. "But you do know you're just postponing the inevitable, right?"

Violet fell silent.

Then, remembering Sherlock was hopefully listening, she asked again. "So... any plans for the game?"

He shrugged, then smiled at the thickening fog. "And spoil all the fun for Sherlock? no way."

Oh, shit. "... Jim?"

"Very clever, Flower, very clever indeed." Her blood turned to ice and when he turned towards her again, grinning at her with playful brown eyes. "Seems you've been naughty, you really have, my love." His hands were cold as they touched her neck, then dropped to her coat pocket and retrieved her phone. "But, then again ..." His gaze turned back to her. "... I suppose there's no harm in having a warm up round, wouldn't you think, Flower?"

She wanted to protest, to lash out in every way that had been drilled into her brain. But all that came out of her dry mouth was a hoarse thread of her voice. "Don't call me that."

"Oh, darling." He leaned into her and lightly kissed her nose, sending sparks up her spine. Violet couldn't believe herself. She was attracted to him NOW?! "You know you like it. Besides, it suits you. And I can call you whatever I want."

"What makes you think that?" She was glaring at him now, her training returning, adrenaline filling her limbs in place of the fear that had been gnawing at her stomach since his hand had touched her neck.

"Do you honestly need a reason?" Jim's voice was huskier than she remembered it, and she ripped the gun from her pocket, bolting to her feet and aiming for his foot, pulling the trigger...

Nothing happened. Jim smiled and wiggled the magazine between two fingers. "Well, alright then."

She closed her eyes. Of course he'd taken it when he'd put it back into her pocket. Jim stood and walked over to her, taking her by her shoulders and kissing her squarely on the mouth. She blinked in shock and drew back, cursing her vision for going hazy, her scars for hurting so much...

* * *

Violet's lovely face flickered in brief confusion before her knees buckled and he caught her, gently cradling her head in his shoulder. He told her one last thing before her quicksilver eyes fluttered closed, the answer to her question, the last thing she heard before she succumbed to the contents of the syringe buried in her right shoulder.

"_You are mine._"


	4. Sentiment

**well hi again! this has gotten way more feedback than I thought it would and as a result I'm owning up the the fact that the last 2 chapters could have been 1, because I basically had an idea for a fanfic, typed it up really fast and posted it as soon as it passed 1,000 words. They're not that carefully constructed and I barely went over it, so I'm trying to do my best with the next ones!**

**PEACE OFF and enjoy the show! (M** **for swearing :)**

* * *

John had only gone into shock in form of trauma, and he didn't believe, as a doctor, that it was possible to go into shock without having some form of injury inflicted upon oneself.

He was seriously reconsidering his opinion on the matter.

Sherlock's face had remained smooth and expressionless as Violet and Moriarty's faintly muffled voices had begun playing from his mobile, their playful banter and serious questions all hinting at time spent together before.

A lot of time.

Sherlock closed his eyes as he heard Violet's strangled gasp and the muffled sound of two bodies pressed together, paired with three whispered words from Moriarty spoken into the silence that made Sherlock's carefully collected features twitch in fury.

"_You are mine..._"

There were a few seconds of static-filled silence. "Sherlock, he has her, we've got to -"

Sherlock made a severe slicing movement with his right hand, effectively shutting him up as Moriarty's cheerful voice began playing from Sherlock's mobile.

"_Well, it was so nice to have a little chat with her, although, if I'm not mistaken, our flower, Sherlock, is feeling a little under the weather."_

Sherlock shut his eyes again and this time he didn't open them.

"_And if you didn't pick it up from the part you heard, Violet and I have known each other since we were about nine years old, and then had probably the best sex I've ever had when we were twenty-three. My doing, I'm afraid, sorry Sherlock__._"

To John's surprise, Sherlock responded in a dead voice. "Merely a detail. Are you going to tell me about the warm up round or not?"

Even through the static, John could easily hear the approval in Jim's voice. "_So impatient. I love it. You'll find the phone where we are now, I trust you know where that is?_"

"Yes."

John looked at him, confused. How could he tell their exact location from the conversation they'd just heard?

"_Cool. And Sherlock, one last word of advice... Don't expect a damsel in distress waiting to be rescued if you find her. I'm sure you heard what I said before: Violet Hunter is mine._"

* * *

Before Sherlock could answer, and he'd been planning to, the line went dead. So Jim finally had a chink in the armour- Violet. He obviously loved her. But he already had her. This was purely for pleasure, he had what he wanted.

Great.

Sherlock, on autopilot, numbly pulled on his coat, leaving his scarf on its hanger. John followed him, spewing questions, and he felt like telling him to shut up and not talk for a few days so he could think. When he shut his eyes to concentrate, all he saw were Jim and Violet, Jim kissing her with his malevolent smile still on his lips, pressed to Violet's stark red ones...

His eyes snapped open and he forced himself to remember their location.

Violet always went to Hyde Park to mope or cool down when she needed to, and it was also where she and Sherlock had chased (and later tackled) a criminal on her first case with them. Sentimental value, he supposed.

"Sher- Sherlock!"

John grabbed him from behind, dragging him off the road as the transit bus that had been en route to running him over thundered past, mere inches from where Sherlock had just been. He stared at John, the pavement, his ears ringing. He was looking at John and his lips were moving, talking to him, shaking him when he didn't respond. But he couldn't seem to hear anything. Everything was so slow, and he had a dim realization that something was wrong. He didn't like this feeling, it was like someone was missing and he knew who it was but he couldn't find her. She was supposed to be holding onto him like John was.

"_Sherlock!_"

The fog cleared from his head and he could see again, recognising. Deducing. The first thing he remembered wasn't what John had just said. It was the last time John had said his name in that same desperate, pleading tone. He remembered watching John hold his wrist with the same kind of ringing in his ears, only hearing the outline of John begging him for a pulse.

"... John." He said in a slightly surprised voice, not trusting himself enough to look at anything but the pavement. He felt John's coat under his fingers and anchored himself to it.

"What the bloody hell was that, Sherlock?! Do you want to die _again_ -"

Sherlock's gorge rose and he tore his eyes to John, staring at him with wide, empty eyes. He asked the first thing that came to mind, a question he'd needed an answer to for a long time. "Is this what I did to you?"

John blinked. He didn't understand. Sherlock wouldn't get an answer, only another question. "What?"

Of course. But it didn't matter. The emotion shrouding his mind had disappeared, and all that mattered now was the game. Sherlock shook his head and stood up to his full height. "Nothing. They're at Hyde park."

"How the hell did you know that?"

"Where else would Violet go after a row?" He retorted, hailing a cab. He was glad to feel himself again, that unnamable emotion he'd felt as he'd wondered what he'd done to John as he'd jumped off the roof almost faded from his memory already. For once, although, he wasn't sure if that was a blessing or something to be missed.

* * *

Sherlock ignored John studiously through the taxi ride, his eyes fixed on some point out the window only he could see. John frowned at his hands and flexed his fingers before burying them in his pockets. He knew it was going to be one of _those_ cases, the cases where it was only Sherlock and Moriarty, but not him. He was always worried about Sherlock when this sort came up, and he was... well, to put it bluntly, he was simply a tagalong. All underneath the Moriarty cases, there was that low murmur that Sherlock didn't need him when they came up. He worked alone in these cases, whether John agreed or not. And now that Violet was invloved, there was no other choice but for him to tag along, he wasn't about to let anything happen to her.

And yet...

It was an obvious truth that Violet prefered Sherlock to John. Not that he blamed her, even a few of his previous girlfriends had left him to make a move on him, but with Violet, it seemed that much more hurtful. John didn't deny he loved his girlfriends on the off chance that they actually got along with Sherlock, but Violet was more than that. She was like him, a devoted soldier discharged for an annoying injury. She understood.

"Do you think we'll find her?" John asked in a small voice.

Sherlock looked slowly over to him, his quicksilver eyes focusing on him, and for the first time in a while really seeing his best friend.

"... I don't know." Sherlock said truthfully, turning back to the window. John's mind ran through their violent reunion, after the three years Sherlock had kept John waiting.

_"You bastard, I'm going to fucking kill you, you died, why are you here, you bastard, get out of my sight before I kill you again, Sherlock!"_

_He lunged weakly at Sherlock, barely able to move. He felt like he was boneless, he felt so heavy. Instead of killing him like he promised, he collapsed into his chest and cried into his tight embrace, sobbing out a few more death threats before he fell to his knees, dragging Sherlock with him. He was skinnier than he remembered, his eyes bruised and bloodshot from exhaustion. The bright, sharp eyes he remembered were cloudy and tired, his body going slack against John's kittenlike blows with resigned acceptance written all over his face._

_"You killed me that day, Sherlock, you bloody **killed** me."_

_His voice was cold, hard. "**I saved you**."_

John's revelation stopped. After that, there had been more tears and plenty well-placed punches, as well as Sherlock confessing he'd told everybody... but him. Followed by a few more punches. John had told Sherlock he loved him, followed by an intense explaination of different kinds of love (in this case, familial love), which was chased closely by an argument on the sore subject of Irene Adler, which led to Sherlock grinning like a cheshire cat and announcing Irene was not dead and the story behind that little excursion. It appeared that things at 221b had returned to normal after the conspicuous three-year absence of the main tenant in a time frame of about fifteen minutes.

Violet felt the same love for Sherlock as John did, non romantically, and he figured Sherlock was just beginning to realize this in full.

And judging by his expression after almost being hit by a bus and the question that followed, he'd chosen that moment accept and return it.

"Yes, Sherlock."

He looked up, studying Sherlock's profile. He hadn't moved in the slightest.

"That is what it felt like." John Watson turned back to the window and watched London speed by.

* * *

Sherlock all but lunged for Violet's phone, scrolling through the messages and finding only one long text from a contact that hadn't been in use for years.

_James_.

He forced himself to breathe and wait for John to catch up, showing the ID to him before opening the message with an unpleasant feeling in his gut.

There were five image files, almost finished downloading, and a caption below the row. "Oh, god, we have no idea what he's going to do with her. Sherlock, what if-"

"No, no, no, he loves her, they grew up together, the whole nine yards, you were there when he said they'd slept with each other. Even James Moriarty has his boundaries. He'd never kill Violet." His voice was harsh, rushed. He stared at the small letters, processing the information as fast as he was ingraining it into his memory.

_You'll find Violet at one of these locations, and while I have no doubts that you can easily deduce which one she is at, there's a little twist this time around- At every location she isn't, there is a clue to a later problem that cannot be recovered after you find her. You can certainly go off and find the clues, but just keep in mind Violet's missing you terribly and we've had a bit of a problem concerning her old wound... So many things to choose from!_

_watching you dance,_

_JMxx_

"Well, shit." Sherlock almost laughed. Their situation was practically worth jumping off St Bart's again, this time sans Molly. "And to put the proverbial cherry of pain on the proverbial cake of more pain, the wound's opened again, or he's done it for her." He handed the phone to John.

He stared at the message. "You're telling me you think he's reopened the scar? You just said he wouldn't kill her because he loves her!"

"Moriarty is still a psychopath at the end of the day, John, and the wound won't kill her although she will be in ample amounts of pain, stop distracting me and think, Violet's at stake here." He let out a hissing breath of frustration through his teeth as the first of the images finished downloading. Glancing at them quickly, he twitched his brow, deducing.

_the abandoned sweet factory in Addlestone. Too randomly sentimental, he'd never take her there. No. The Pool. that was just for he and I, it has to be something related to the two of them. Probably an important clue left there. No. 221c. Mrs Hudson would have heard. Where they had sex? Unpleasant to think of. Thought deleted. Possible. The morgue at St Bart's. Why would he take her there? No percievable reason. Probable. Roland-Kerr Further Education College. _

His thoughts stumbled and he stared at the image, trying to make connections. He knew it was somehow related to him, something related to Moriarty as well...

_A Study in Pink. the Cabbie. The classroom. Pills. John. Of course. Not his style._

"We've got two possibilities of where he's keeping her. Only hitch in the plan are the clues." Sherlock shook his head. "What are we going to do about that?"

"We could split up." John said, raking a hand through his hair in distress. "But I won't know what to look for, and I have a feeling we're not allowed to do it."

"Do what?"

"Split up. Moriarty wants us to play by his rules, always has, but it was alright to find shortcuts then." He grabbed Sherlock's shoulder and forced him to make eye contact. "This is personal, Sherlock, we have to play his game this time around if we want Violet back."

"No, no we don't." Sherlock grinned for no apparent reason other than this was another elaborate game. "He's using Violet for leverage, but it's also his leverage. He loves her, remember? We've found his weakness. But we can't call it a weakness, only an asset, because Vi means something to us as well so he can't hurt her more than his emotions will allow. He won't hurt her, John, he'll only be thrown off that we found a loophole in his game."

"You said it yourself, the man is a bloody psychopath, and you of all people know they will do anything to get what they want. They will die for their cause if they see fit." He shook Sherlock again, glaring at him. "We are not going to risk Violet on this one, Sherlock. You can solve the problems without the clues, I know you can."

Sherlock faltered. His idea was a gamble. John's was logical, well thought out and by far the better option. But he didn't want to make a mistake, he didn't want to see Violet hurt because of something he made a mistake on. It was all on him.

"What if I'm wrong." He asked in a dead voice. "Every mistake we make, he hurts her more."

"I believe in you, Sherlock." John looked straight into his eyes. "You're going to be bloody magnificent and you know it."

For a fleeting second, he understood those pregnant, appreciative pauses that filled other people's lives. Simple, pure and affectionate. It wasn't a bad feeling.

Sherlock Holmes faked a weak smile and stalked back the way they'd come. It seemed petty, going through all this for one person. Although, he should talk. He'd orchestrated his own complicated suicide for John. Violet was the prize apparently, and for some reason he didn't like to think of her as such. It didn't feel right.

_Come on, Jim. _He whispered under his breath so quiet he could barely hear himself. _I'm waiting._

* * *

**OOOOOOH! WOW. that was fun. Actually had no idea where this would go. turned out nicely, drop a review and telll me what you think on it so far. **

**PEACE OFF AND BROMANCE FOR EVERYBODEEEEE**


	5. old friends

**Hi again! chapter's rated M for swearing and blood and sort of sexual content. (Jim/Vi) Thank you for all the great reviews, they are really wonderful! Thanks for staying with me this far and enjoy the show. story. Whichever.**

* * *

Violet pushed an irritated groan from her mouth and opened her eyes. They'd never felt so heavy and gritty, like she'd decided to put in contacts made of sand. Her thoracic vertebrae made little cracking noises as she picked her chin up from its perch on her clavicle, rolling her shoulders and wincing.

_Jim._ Oh, god. the last hour came rushing back to her and she felt like asking him for another sedative. Preferably in the form of a plastic cricket bat to the head. He was leaning up against the slab on the seat opposite her, playing Tetris on his phone. Of course, he bloody adored that game when they were kids.

_Slab?_

Oh, right. A quick 180 (as far as her neck could reach at the moment) of the room showed they were in a mortuary, she recognised the layout of St Bart's. Jim had handcuffed her to a morgue slab, mercifully sans cadaver. All the lights but the one above them had gone out, the place totally deserted even though it was barely 3 o clock.

"You promised you'd stop shooting me up, Jimmy." She tried to say sarcastically, sounding much more confident than she felt.

Jim looked up, his wide eyes flickering. He put his phone in his pocket, losing his game. "Come on, that was only once, and it was for your own safety."

"So I wouldn't find out about you paying a desperate pervert to start serial raping?" Violet hissed coldly, ignoring the memory of his arms around her that followed soon after.

"For your own safety." He said flatly. "You were his next target, flower. Do you seriously think I would have let that happen to you? Do you even remember how close we were? How much we relied on each other?"

"Thanks for the favor, but if that was true you wouldn't have let me go on the mission centered around your little underworld the next morning." Violet cringed, hating the way her words had just popped out of her mouth. Jim caught her slip up and grinned.

"I think you skipped something there, flower, what do you think it is? What about the next morning?"

"I'm not playing your little _games, _Jim, we had enough of those when we were kids-"

"Everyone plays my games, Violet." He said scathingly. "Whether they like it or not. Living with Sherlock and growing up with me, you should know that better than most people by now."

"Oh, yeah, of course I do. I just don't see why I have to say what happened-"

His cold fingers reached out and touched the right side of her waist, tracing her scar through her t-shirt.

Violet's eyes went wide and her throat moved, but she couldn't speak. The scar was very prominent, the messy semblance of a sideways M. It cut very deep, and she guessed they must have cauterized it while she was unconscious. Nothing that serious could have sealed that fast and that cleanly otherwise. Jim's index finger touched the ridge of a part they'd missed, that was healing from the inside out. His thumb slipped under her shirt and he lifted the fabric to look at her.

He frowned, tilting his head.

M.

A sickening thought entered Violet's mind and she began to shake her head, denying instantly what was slowly becoming apparent with every word of Jim's next sentence-

"It's faded quite a bit, we might need to go over it again. Hope you won't mind."

Moriarty.

M.

For a second, as their eyes met and he smiled angelically at her, she understood how unstable Jim had become. Terror climbed her throat, but she swallowed it.

Then she was just _pissed._

"So they weren't doing flowers anymore, were they, Jim?" She spat, hissing into his face. "Too expensive? Not ominous enough? Just the 'M'? Keep the girl guessing, is that what you were thinking? I WAS GONE FOR THREE FUCKING WEEKS, JIM! THREE!"

He only looked at her with a set jaw. To her confusion, there was real regret in his eyes.

"Why- just..." Violet shook her head hard, still seeing red. "WHY?! When I left you were Jim and when I came back you were Moriarty! HOW COULD YOU HAVE JUST-"

"I was insane the whole time, I don't see why you're just realizing now that it only took one thing to send me over the edge." Jim looked at her with an unreadable face.

"Do you have any idea how much time I wasted looking for you?"

"And vice versa?"

Violet closed her mouth. As an MI6 field intern, she was sent on little missions with her mentor, but they never lasted more than a week or so. Jim was always waiting for her when she came back, but after that mission he'd organised, the serial rapist, he hadn't been the same when she returned. There was something wrong with his smile, and after a short, awkward conversation he'd left and never come back. At first she'd assumed he was angry because the mission had lasted longer than she'd said it would, but she knew Jim wouldn't get angry over something like that. It had taken months before she's given up and focused on MI6.

"I deserved that." She muttered.

"Yeah." Jim replied. "You really did."

"You're not my friend anymore, James." Violet said flatly. She meant it- Jim was her best friend who she was quite possibly completely in love with. Moriarty was a madman to destroy.

Jim looked at her with a grim smile. "I know you don't think of me that way anymore, but it doesn't mean it never happened. You are my better half, after all."

Violet almost smiled. Just like she almost kissed Jim back when he leaned forward and pressed his mouth to hers. She almost fought back when he slipped his arms around her waist.

She did fight back, however, a matter of seconds after that.

"Jim." She mumbled into the corner of his mouth.

"Mmm... yes flower?" He brushed his nose along her cheek and breathed on her jugular, almost biting her. He'd always had an odd fascination with blood.

"Get your hand out of my pants. Now." Her voice went hard, with more conviction. She shifted her weight and tried to ignore her arousal.

* * *

She bit him to accent her point, but all he registered was finding that incredibly sexy. He did remove his hand from her waistband, then flexed his fingers and dug them into her back, roughly groping the edges of her scar. Violet's breath hitched and her warm breath stroked the side of his face.

"Mmm... Isn't this fun?" He murmured against her lips. They were soft and warm, but he was starting to want more. "These little talks. Isn't it hot in here?"

"Is that your indirect way of asking me to take my clothes off, Mr Moriarty?" There! That was his Flower. She was getting playful.

"Only if you want to..." Jim slid his hand back into her waistband, beginning to kiss her neck.

There was a long, pregnant pause. The answer would obviously be no, so he might as well make the most of it. Well, on another hand Violet was full of surprises, wasn't she?

"No." She said firmly, jerking away from him and glaring. Her cheeks were flaming red, and her face was livid and flustered. She'd liked that, oh, she'd liked that a lot. He merely shrugged. It didn't matter, Sherlock would be getting along in the warm up round and for it to work he'd have to get along in his side as well.

"S'alright. We're running short on time anyway." He glanced at the clock on the wall, flicking another syringe from his pocket and testing the end as he stood. Violet's eyes were wide.

"No." She shrank back from him, well, as much as she could while handcuffed to a slab, and kept her eyes fixed on the shot. "Not again."

"Really? You don't want it?" Jim held it away from her, but she remained withdrawn. Her shirt was still hiked up around her navel. Perfect.

"Don't do that to me again, Jim, or I swear I'll-"

"I just thought you might, seeing as this is going to hurt a lot." He grinned one last time, his face close to Violet's, as he withdrew a switchblade from his jacket and sliced the blade across her stomach, holding her long, beautiful scream in his hand.

* * *

Sherlock only looked back when he realized John wasn't following. "Problem?"

"Did you hear that?" He looked back at the doorway they'd come through to get to the mortuary. 221c hadn't held any clues as far as he could tell, only a red smiley face spray painted on the mirror propped up against the wall, but he'd memorized the entire room to be safe. "I just heard something."

"We're in a functioning hospital, there's bound to be some kind of noise around." He muttered, striding ahead. His patience had already been tested at 221c, with no visual clues, and he was starting to think he should have gone out to get the rest. This was going to be terrible.

"No, I mean, it sounded like Vi-"

Sherlock rounded a corner and dodged Molly expertly, although she clipped his shoulder and let out a squeak of surprise. "Oh, Sherlock! Hi!"

He swept past her with a mumbled greeting, but something caught his eye. there was a sign on the inside of the door.

"Molly. Why is the Morgue closed?"

"Oh, um, they said it was for cleaning-"

That was all the confirmation he needed. Sherlock, adrenaline pumping through his veins, pushed through the door, ignored Molly's protests, and his eyes instantly zeroed in on something that sent jagged ice flooding into his heart. He staggered back into John, his breathing erratic and raspy. He screwed his eyes shut and pressed his forehead into the wall, trying not to remember what he'd just seen and would see again as soon as he turned around. The human eye, being a lazy organ, was drawn to the brightest thing it could find. In a sterile white room, there was nothing else to see but the mercifully small puddle of blood around the chair.

There were unlocked handcuffs hooked around the legs of the slab.

"Oh, god." John choked. Molly stared, her face pale and confused.

"NO!" Sherlock shouted, slamming his fist into the wall. "They were _just here!_ We missed them!" He growled and interlaced his fingers behind his head, glaring at the blood. He noticed an origami flower on the slab and instantly bolted towards it. It was Moriarty's move now.

* * *

John stared, shellshocked all over again, at the pool of blood. Small. Nowhere near enough to kill. But it was cut short suddenly, someone had been there to stop the bleeding. An arm or leg wound wouldn't have bled that much, and it wasn't enough for a slit throat. That left a shallow abdomen cut.

He closed his eyes. Sometimes he really hated being a doctor.

Sherlock seemed to be getting somewhere, though. He was rapidly unfolding a paper flower, avoiding the blood with a set jaw and blank face. He stared at the message at the center, his expression growing ever darker as he took in the photograph on the other side.

"What is it?"

"Darkwood Manor." Sherlock bowed his head and tossed the paper to John. The image was an old, broken-in mansion, ivy crawling up the stairs, but it was unmistakably something he'd seen before.

"Darkwood Manor as in... the place you grew up?" John stared at the photo, forcing himself to memorize it and knowing full well he wasn't doing it as well as Sherlock. "What kind of a clue is that?"

"It's not a clue." Sherlock took the paper from John. "It's a case. The murder of Artemisia Medici was something that baffled every detective of the time, including me. It was never solved, even though I begged them to stay on it. I was only a kid, I had no idea where to start when my father suggested I should try to solve it."

"Did you ever get anywhere?"

"No." Sherlock crumpled up the paper and tossed it dangerously close to the blood. "For twenty years I tried. I put Lestrade on it, but he came up empty. I came up empty."

"We're supposed to solve it, alright." John said in a weak attempt to keep Sherlock on task. "He didn't give us a time limit, so we've got that asset this time around..."

Sherlock didn't reply, only shot a pointed look to the blood.

John sighed. "... And only as much time as Violet stays alive."

"I want to help." Piped up a voice with complete conviction.

Sherlock rolled his eyes, but John at least decided to give Molly a reason. "Absolutely not. This is between Sherlock and Moriarty, I'm only here because Violet is being used as leverage."

John tried to pretend he imagined the look of wholehearted agreement on Sherlock's face. He nodded. "Sorry Molly, another time when every word we waste doesn't mean pain for Admiral Hunter." He stalked towards the door.

"Where are you going? Darkwood's in Sussex, are we really-"

"Of course not. I kept the case files in my bedroom, and I need to talk to Lestrade." With a flicker of light from his cell phone screen and the sound of his coattails caressing the air, Sherlock was gone. John began to follow when Molly spoke again in a dark, flat tone he hadn't heard her speak in before.

"Do you know why I spoke up?"

John blinked in confusion and turned to Molly. She was glowering at him. "... No." He lied. _Yes. You're in love with him._

"Because I know what Jim's trying to do to him." Molly's expression temporarily turned to something John recognised- longing.

"What is it?" John asked.

Molly blinked and turned her gaze back to John. "He's trying to make him love Violet and go to any distance to get her back. That will make him realize he's let his heart get over his head, which is the last thing he wants. I knew Moriarty is cruel, but this is just ..." She shook her head. "... This is too damn far. I needed to help him with this. He knows me. I _count. _Don't leave him alone, alright? It's already working, Sherlock's withdrawing from us." She looked at him earnestly. "Don't let him do this alone."

"Of course not."

"No, I mean it." The severity in Molly's voice was... real. John doubted he'd ever seen Molly like this. she grabbed his arm. "Don't let him out of your sight. Promise me."

"I-I promise."

"Good." She let her hand slacken and ushered him to the door. "Now go and figure out this case. Sherlock'll need you."

"Right, excellent." Why was Molly being so serious about this? She was in love with him, maybe she was overreacting, but it was so... real. He turned back to her. "What did you mean by 'He'll need me'-"

Molly didn't answer. She'd already shut the door.

John took in a breath and followed the hallway outside.

* * *

**To be continued...**


	6. difficulty

Over the racket of Sherlock doing something he'd never, in eight years of intimate friendship, seen him do, John realized he hadn't eaten for about ten hours and was eagerly devouring a plate of Mrs Hudson's pasta when Sherlock struck gold with a door slammed in triumph.

Sherlock was cleaning his room. Looking for the case file.

He marched into the kitchen, removing a few various experiments from the table and consequently John's pasta, uncerimoniously dumping a three-inch thick file of papers and assorted evidence bags where it had just been.

"The case of Artemisia Holmes." He muttered, opening to the middle of the file, seemingly at random, and scanning the page. "Unsolved for over twenty years. Now, I have only what I collected from it dating back to when I was thirteen years old, and there is no remaining evidence. Any suspects will be able to lie about it easily, seeing as it was so long ago, and we have to do this as fast as possible to get to Violet before he cuts her again. Fantastic."

"Holmes?" John looked at Sherlock, deciding to ignore his complete and utter negativity, brow furrowed. "She was related to you?"

"She was my mother." Sherlock began flicking through the file, rapidly scanning the pages with practiced skill. He picked up a page of images of a woman's bloody, deceased face, her familiar slanted eyes wide open in shock over high cheekbones and full, parted lips.

John shut his eyes, Molly's sudden interest in helping Sherlock now making sense. Working on your mother's murder at thirteen... Only Sherlock Holmes would.

"What did you gather?" John took half the pile from the file and flicked through the surprisingly realistic sketches of Sherlock standing next to his mother, while she was still alive, at least. He snatched that one back, shoving it to the bottom of a pile with an inaudible mutter of something that sounded like 'Bugger Mycroft'. John rolled his eyes and ran through the rest of the pile, pausing to read a Police summary of the case.

_Artemisia Holmes (nee Medici), 34, found dead in home. Darkwood Manor, Sussex, England. Property owned by D. Holmes. Victim was shot once in the nape of the neck with enough force to instantly sever her nervous system and cervical vertebrae, died of blood loss and severed esophagus and trachea. Forensics came to a conclusion that she was restrained with cholorform and choked before violent shot proved fatal. gun not found. Suspects: Son, Sherlock Holmes, 13, Spouse, Daniel Holmes, 37. Witnesses:0_

John stared in horror at the photos of the back of her neck. It was a terrible way to die, and him being a doctor he knew how much pain she'd have been in, what would have snapped and bled out first. She would have screamed if she was restrained, and being Sherlock's mother he suspected she would've fought back with some degree of skill, but the assailant would have had the upper hand from being behind her and shot her as soon as her body went slack from the drugs...

He shook the feeling of someone slowly dragging their fingernails down his spine off and instead glanced at Sherlock, who was looking hard at the photographs. "Why were you a suspect?"

He snorted and examined a photograph of his mother's neck more intently. "Everyone on that team was suspicious about me because I deduced so much about the murder and pretty much everything in that police report, and they just hated me in general. I can't say I blame them, I was a complete pain in the arse from their point of view, telling them they were practically stepping on evidence and that they made the diameter way to small for the correct procedure of examination and there were a few harmless deductions about their sexual proclivities and parentage that got me grounded 'until I died', so I guess I'm not under my dad's thumb anymore as of three years ago." Sherlock muttered the last bit, one of his crooked smirks lighting up his face.

John grinned halfheartedly and turned back to the gory images while Sherlock sifted through every moment of his mother's death with a mental fine-toothed comb. _Thanks for the heads_ _up_,_ Molly,_ He thought gratefully.

* * *

_There's an Irish drawl to his sweet voice as he talks to her. They're starving, but there's nowhere good to go and her mom's place is ages away. They're walking there through the post-midnight streets._

_Why didn't you tell me you smoked, the boy asked. he isn't hurt, merely curious. That's how they talk to each other._

_She shrugs and snuggles her face into the cowl she's been wearing for years. Never came up, she says. I thought you'd figured it out. I'm quitting anyway, I'm applying for that field internship with MI6._

_Let me know how it goes. He grins, pushing her playfully. Or I'll find out for myself. She thinks he's joking, but he's not._

_I'm not getting it anyway. She mutters dejectedly, shoulder-shoving him back. Do you have any idea how long it's gonna take?_

_eight months. He replies automatically. She's drilled the date into his brain. He expects when she'll leave. _

_Eight bloody months! She confirms, throwing up her hands. I'll have died or something by then. Death by competition. Pretty common among us initiates. Her eyes are glowing silver when they're out of the streetlights. He thinks it's intruiging. _

_If I asked you to kill me, would you? She asks. This is how their conversations normally turn out, along with altered versions of their favorite game- Is It Physically Possible To Kill Someone With This Object?_

_Sure. He replies, seamlessly adapting to the turn of subject. Would there be a particular reason?_

_I don't know about any yet. But I just decided to make sure because I think I could stomach and carry out the idea of killing you._

_He flashes another sharp-toothed grin. No way. He looks up at the sky. There's no way you could kill me, You're too sentimental._

_You say it like it's a bad thing._

_Sometimes it is. You just love me too much. He smiles at the stars above them. There are some visible behind the clouds, and it's starting to snow._

_Well, that's good to know you don't love me so much that you'll kill me at any given chance, She mutters. Their love isn't sexual- they've been around each other for their entire childhoods, plus a few years. They are like siblings._

_Not at any given chance, and I didn't say I'd like it, He says in a dark voice._

_Final answer in five, four, three, two, one- Would you kill me if I asked you to? She announces, shouting it out into the empty street and listening to the echo. It occures to her she might be drunk._

_Nope. When she looks at him curiously, He continues. Realistically, there won't be any reason for that at any time during your life._

_What about yours?_

_I'm different. he looks at her fondly, his eyes travelling down to the supple curve of her waist. I... know things._

_Violet just rolls her eyes and trips Jim with a classic backwards kick to the arse and starts running._

_Wake._

* * *

Sherlock had broken his patience with the case hours before he agreed to take it to the Yard. He'd thought he'd have something new to deduce after seeing everything again from the last time he'd given it up (and it had happeneed multiple times), but apparently he wasn't that lucky. Everything was _exactly _as he'd left it, the wound, the murder weapon, the two suspects, one of which had died weeks after Sherlock's 'funeral', and the other was now 38 years old and working on the case. He just needed access to his dad's security camera system he'd installed around the Manor with Sherlock's help. Any information he did find out was exceedingly familiar because he'd _already figured it out years ago,_ and there was literally nothing to go on. The forensics hadn't bothered to try and get a ballistics report, or the gun, or _anything else that would have made this so much easier._

John in tow, Sherlock stalked into the door of Lestrade's office, dumping the file on his desk. Lestrade, for once, didn't make any move to stop him.

"Moriarty is using Admiral Hunter for leverage against us and has begun sending us cases to leave a trail of bread crumbs to follow. This is my mother's murder case, the neck shooting just under twenty years ago. Unsolved. And it's what we need to solve before we go to save Violet." He felt himself flinch at the mention of her name. "She's hurt."

Lestrade opened the file and stared at the pictures, remembering the case that had brought him and Sherlock together in a rough, distrustful camaraderie. "Oh, god, it's this one." He ran a hand through his hair. "Jim's not making it easy for you this time around, is he?"

"Course not." Sherlock let out a little sigh of frustration. "But he wouldn't have sent it to me if he didn't know I would solve it in the end."

"Training wheels." John muttered. Sherlock shot him 'the face' and turned back to Lestrade.

"Root out everything you have left over from this, down to the relationship and allergy of each officer that was on it." He jabbed a finger into the thick papers.

"Are you sure-"

"I'm sure." Sherlock looked Lestrade full in his eyes, begging him to _get on with_ it.

The DI nodded. "I'll get what I can."

"Out of curiosity..." John started, looking at Sherlock. "... in the case file it read there weren't any detectives ever on the case. It was only forensics officers. Why?"

His eyes glinting with malice, Sherlock began explaining. "They gave up. But they had a lead, I know they did. I was taken away from where I was eavesdropping on them, and it was the only thing their body language spoke of. It's probably wrong, but I need to find out what it is and compare it with what I know. I think I have a suspect."

"Really?" John's attention instantly piqued, he stared at Sherlock. "Who?"

He swallowed. "I know now Moriarty is involved in the case, why else would he send it to me? I just need to find how it's related to him. It was the _shooting_. Don't you see?"

John blinked, and Sherlock could practically see John peice together the facts to paint a theory. His eyes widened. Lips parted. He looked up at him. "No way. But that means-"

"He would have been young, maybe fifteen at the time. It would explain why he's so high in Moriarty's ranks." Sherlock said slowly, trying to shake the thought from his head.

John cringed. "Moran."

"Moran." Sherlock agreed.

* * *

Violet was dreaming.

She'd lost consciousness soon after Seb arrived to carry her off to the last checkpoint, and Jim had guessed she'd fallen asleep sometime after she'd stopped screaming. He watched her corneas move around under her eyelids, and judging by her frown she wasn't having a very nice dream. The blood had coagulated quite a bit since he'd first cut her, and it ran in tracks down her belly. She shuddered and curled in on herself, clinging to the floor in a way that made him think she needed someone around when she woke up.

"Professor." Sebastian finished adjusting her position and stood, walking past his employer and opening the door. "We should go and check on Holmes."

"Yes. In a second." Jim memorised the pattern of blood trails on the floor behind him and glanced back at Violet. Her eyes were open, wide and vacant. "Go to the car, I'll be along in two shakes."

The sniper looked quizzically at him before leaving. Moriarty kept his eyes keen on Violet's, watching her. She wasn't really awake, like a second eyelid was down and she couldn't really see him. He didn't exactly feel sorry for what he'd done, but there was a dull pain behind his brow, the beginning of a migrane, that told him maybe it hadn't been such a good idea. He shook his head, blinking rapidly to clear that feeling from his head. Regret was counterproductive.

After a full minute, her grey irises rolled back into her head and the closed her eyes.

"See ya, flower." He murmured before walking out of the dark room and joining Sebastian by the car.

* * *

**okay, I promise shit actually does get real in the next chapter. It's centered around the Medici case (yes, I did name sherlock's mother after a noble italian family and a female artisan, deal with it) so there's not much Violet action. Not that she's going anywhere, because there's an interesting twist about exactly how many cuts Jim made...**


	7. Good times

Sherlock Holmes was feeling something.

Or, to put it incrementally clearer, he wasn't feeling anything at all.

And not just any something, not anything like the annoyance and frustration that had accompanied the beginning of this case, not even the straight up fury of hearing Moriarty's dark voice declare Violet as his.

He supposed it could be qualified as loneliness, but it wasn't really... anything.

He was used to this feeling, but it hadn't come in a while. Not since he'd accepted John's right hook to the face that spoke of all the anguish and pain of the previous three years. Then, he'd been sure he'd never feel more relief paired with the sensation of someone punching him ever again. It wasn't loneliness. It was complete emptiness.

Just. Nothing. Like Sherlock's considerably-less-than-satisfactory emotional range had decided to walk off the edge of the universe and wasn't anywhere at all. Like someone had drowned his heart in antiseptic, which, now that he thought about it, was an interesting experiment to try out, but it made him completely numb, something both John and Violet had little by little returned feeling to.

He could process and work out the current case of his mother's murder. He actually already had. It was Moran, age sixteen, budding sniper who was apparently best friends with a perpetually cheerful eight year old criminal mastermind. Moriarty wouldn't have used it for a game if he knew Sherlock wouldn't be able to solve it. It was the murderer who was giving him the tinge of anger behind all the numbness.

"Sebastian Moran, aged sixteen." As Lestrade spoke, Sherlock forced his face to remain smooth. He'd handle Moran later. Right now the problem with this case was the main priority. "You're saying you think a teenage assassin killed Sherlock's Mum."

"You have to admit it makes sense." John was almost pleading Lestrade to believe Sherlock's near confirmation. "Moriarty's first orchestrated murder, at least the only one we know of, was at _eleven_, do you really think he would stop after that?"

He had been studiously ignoring Lestrade and John as their minds caught up with his, two minutes late. He decided to intervene.

"You know it makes sense, you're just refusing to aknowlege it." Sherlock said darkly. "The real case is already solved, Lestrade, I've seen that style of shot on a few other occaisions with all the same facts and data on scene, it was Sebastian getting used to his new profession with Moriarty. All that we need to be worried about now is where to find Moran."

"Why do we need to find him if the case is already solved?" John asked.

"This is way too simple. I took less than two minutes." He shook his head, grinning wryly and lightly banging his head against the window of Lestrade's office. "It's like he's trying to make us beg for her."

"So now we actually have to find Moran." Lestrade guessed. "And the man is a dead end in itself. We're not starting in a good place, Sherlock."

"There's always something." Captain John Watson of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers said in a steely voice. "Sherlock. Case files and links. I'll help you."

Sherlock didn't move to fetch the case files. In fact he didn't move at all, only held Lestrade's gaze and let his emotions show. He let the summary sink in and agreed every word. They had nothing. They needed to start looking, and now, because Violet was dying even as they stood there in perfect silence, waiting for his verdict.

And for once, Sherlock didn't feel like giving it. He wanted someone else to take over. He was _tired._

Yeah, right. He laughed aloud. Lestrade and John stared.

"We've got nothing. On his whearabouts, I mean. It's my job to find the mistakes, but Moran doesn't leave mistakes." He murmured, too quiet for the others to hear him. "This whole situation is going to be hell. Looking is going to take too long and sometimes I'm going to wonder why I didn't just aim for the sidewalk instead of the truck..."

"Don't talk to me about that, Sherlock, unless you want to be sorely missing your right cheekbone." John hissed, clenching his fist. The corner of Sherlock's mouth quirked. Apparently he'd been a little louder than anticipated. "Do you want to find Violet or not?"

"Right then, let's get started." Lestrade stood and clapped his hands. "Something from nothing, that's our job, right?"

As John muttered a reply, Sherlock stalked out of the DI's office, flickering through the case file for what must have been the tenth time while John and Lestrade portrayed the very meaning of 'fiddle while rome burns' behind him.

* * *

_Her mouth feels like sandpaper, and she can't see for a good few seconds before everything focusses and the boy walks into view, carrying a mug of cocoa as a peace offering. She decides he'll need it as the events of the previous day come rushing back._

_What the fuck, Jim! She sits bolt upright and instantly starts shouting. You just decided to shoot me up for no apparent reason and decide that's the end of it? That's bloody-_

_Hey! Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold up! He waves his hands to cut her off, placing the mug on the table. It smells good. Whoa! Okay, first of all, you didn't let me explain. Second - he says this sharper to hold her off - You'll thank me later, because I recently acquired the information that teenage female kidnapping sex trade operation you're heading after on your field mission tomorrow has their next target. That's you. _

_His hands come together and he crosses his arms, looking at her expectantly. As you were, Private._

_How the hell did you know I was being targeted?_

_You have your tricks, I'm allowed to have mine._

_Yeah, but you can always figure out my tricks. How did you know?_

_Before she fully finishes the sentence, he gently pushes her onto her back and nuzzles his face into the crook of her neck, resting his chin on her shoulder and leaning into her hair, cuddling her. It is so like him she can hardly resist rolling her eyes and placing her hands delicately on his shoulders. And she lets him do that thing he's doing, warm her cold hands and rest on her shoulder, breathing is as she does out. She's tackled him in a field in Dublin, he's bitten through her shirt and they've known each other for years, but they've never done this. She wraps her arms around him and grips the back of his neck, burying her nose in his scratchy hair. You didn't answer me, she whispered into his stubbly neck, effectively ruining the moment._

_James doesn't seem to mind. He gives that cute lopsided puppy smile of his and grabs her hand, swinging it between them like they're kids again. I have people who owe me. A lot of people, you could say. I'm not entirely corrupted. Really I'm just happy to see you awake, alert and not stuck in the sex trade. It wouldn't really suit you. Oh, and your pupils are making me pretty smug right now._

_Oh, god. She touches below her eyes. How big?_

_Pretty damn big. Oh, and you just scratched your nose. You're attracted to me, honey. Jim smiles big and something about it isn't as cheerful as before. It's really putting her off and as Jim knows very well, being unnerving is often better than being scary._

_Are you trying to scare me into sleeping with you? She asks suspiciously._

_Maybe. Thanks for reminding me. He lowers himself on to kiss her again and this time she doesn't protest. He was Jim, after all, and Violet trusted him with her life. Hell, she loved the shit out of him. _

_It started out innocently enough- they'd made out only twice in fifteen years of knowing each other, and this was a few steps down from that. Then they began to bite, kissing more skin than lips and giving hickeys galore, something she dreamily thought would earn her some grief in the locker room as she began to feel another one pop up on her cheek and under the current whereabouts of Jim's mouth. He pulled away for a second, breathing ragged and irises completely blasted black, to pull his shirt off and toss his pants in a corner and start to worry about how completely overdressed she was feeling._

_She didn't put up a fight until he had been on top of her for about fifteen minutes and pressed her hands against his boxers-only clad thighs. _

_Jimmy, I can't-_

_To her surprise and slight relief, Jim, gasping for breath and shining with perspiration, rolls off her and leans against the back of the couch. _

_And to her indigance, starts to pull his shirt on. Hey!_

_He pulls his head through the neck, looks at her and giggles at his handiwork. He's reduced her to a total mess. Hey?_

_What in the world makes you think I'm finished with you?_

_He looks puzzled. You said no._

_I said 'I can't'. I couldn't breathe, moron, you were bloody crushing me. she swats his head. Other way round, idiot._

_Oh. Okay. He said cheerfully, allowing her to take his (backwards) shirt off again, throw it somewhere in the vincity of the rest of their clothes and resume what they'd started._

* * *

Violet felt fine for about five seconds after she woke up. After they were up, she felt something trickling out of her mouth. And stomach. It would've tickled if it's source didn't hurt so much.

She felt ripped, puckered, ragged. Like when she'd taken those inevitable slices along the edge of her first finger while learning how to use a handgun and she'd burnt them on her stove. Now that had hurt. She heaved, vomiting up bile and red and what felt like chunks of her throat and insides. It went on for what seeed like days, hours, but it did stop, eventually. She only remembered Jim and what had happened at St Barts after she'd coughed up the last of it.

She fell back onto the floor and gasped for breath, screaming with every torch of pain that rammed through her stomach. Only after her eyes fell to the puddle of darkness on the floor did she stop shouting and begin to cry without realizing it.

That was a lot of blood.

Yeah, a lot of blood... She thought vaguely as the room tilted and burning dizziness overwhelmed her.

* * *

"Oh, my God!" John exclaimed suddenly, sitting bolt upright in Lestrade's seat where he's been stationary for the past half hour and pulling his fist away from where it had been supporting his cheek. Sherlock froze and locked eyes with him, leery to any kind of clue without his okay. He stared at John, but he wasn't looking at Sherlock, he was looking _through _him, his eyes darting around, furiously watching as all the little clues clicked into place as he thought about it more and more. Sherlock practically glowed with pride.

"What have you got?" Sherlock, still smiling, took his feet off the filing cabinet in the corner of the room, cracked his neck and moved closer to John. Lestrade picked his head up from the case file and looked at the two blearily.

"Greg, do you remember the Adair shooting a couple years back?" John bolted to his feet and began pacing, gesturing rapidly. Lestrade's brow furrowed. "You know, it was all over the papers, Ronald Adair, Son of the Earl of somewhere or other, shot in the head with a revolver and door locked from the inside, only exit a twenty-foot drop into a completely undisturbed flowerbed, you were on that, I remember."

"Yes..."

"Oh." Sherlock's breath left his chest in one exhale of wonder as he began to see where John was going with this. He would've been at Uni when this happened so he didn't know the details, but he trusted John with this.

"Yeah!" John began to get more excited, twitching his hands. "So after Moran was discharged from Afghanistan, he was in really bad shape, I know this personally, neither of you would. I'm sorry I never told you but it never came up, Sherlock, I knew the bloke in Afghanistan. I'm sorry. Don't make me explain right now."

The confession hit him like a dull thud in his sternum, but he forced himself not to take emotion to it. "No problem."

"I also happen to know..." John held up a finger and began sifting through a large pile of onld papers they homicide division picked through for links, and John pulled one out from the near bottom, frisbeeing it to Sherlock. "... He was pretty torn up after Jim supposedly died and lost quite a bit of pretty much everything. He couldn't exactly go around being a sniper for hire, so he went after Sherlock, failed, and started playing at a casino to keep him on his feet. Ron Adair noticed he cheated to win, blackmailed Moran and was promptly brained for his trouble. But..."

"But..." Sherlock momentarily sifted through the paper John had handed him, describing the undisclosed murder of Ronald Adair.

"But..." Lestrade slowly began to smile, nodding as he remembered the case in full. "But, Ron came to the press first. Smart little bugger, we all know how good news spreads like wildfire."

After a second of uncomfortable silence, Lestrade spoke again in a quick apology. "Didn't mean anything by it, Sherlock. Sorry."

Sherlock merely shrugged and turned to face the window. "What would letting the media know about Moran's cheating have to do with tracking him down?"

"This certain casino..." John ran a quick search on his phone. "... Keeps records, like security recordings and files, transactions and games played, of certain people and certain times and places in their vaults. It's not only games they work for, it's blackmail, against the police or the players, it doesn't matter. It works like Irene Adler's cameraphone, you remember that?"

"Of course."

"So it's got footage of Moran." Lestrade shrugged. "What next?"

"We'll just have to ask them." John grinned cryptically and pulled his jacket on. "It's a freestanding building, out in the country. Bit of a drive, but it'll get us places."

"What about Violet?" Sherlock and Lestrade, followed, the latter remembering the leverage for the case and the other turning his coat collars up and feeling a little left out. It occured to Sherlock he might have taught John too well.

"Vi's tough, and there's nothing we can do for her but hurry up." John answered, tossing Sherlock his scarf and hailing a cab on the road. "Greg, coming?"

"No. I'll go through the papers, see if I can get anything. I'll call with an update." Lestrade nodded to John and grabbed Sherlock's bicep, stopping him before he stepped in the taxi. "Hey, listen, are you alright?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" He answered in the monotone he used when he was tired.

"Well, you're a little... quiet." Lestrade's gaze momentarily flickered to the ground, then back at Sherlock. "And I've known you for over ten years. I've never seen you act like this, much less when there's an intimate friend involved..." Sherlock could only stare at the DI as he struggled for words. Jesus, was he really thinking... Sherlock and Violet? "Look, I know..." He gave up trying to be descreet and let go of his arm, shoving his hands in his pockets and speaking normal volume. "... I know you and Violet share this little unspoken bond or whatever you two have, and from your point of view this could get in the way, you being... well, you, and I want to let you know it... it doesn't get in the way unless you expect it to. If you don't expect anything to happen in that area, nothing will."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Sherlock sputtered, somewhere between furious and completely lost. Him and Violet. He'd admittedly thought about it before, and not in an entirely bad way. Although there was no way he was letting that thought inside his head again. Lestrade shook his head.

"It's nothing, I don't know what the bloody hell I was thinking, trying to have a man talk with Sherlock bloody Holmes..." The DI stalked back into Scotland Yard, pausing at the door, and seeming to find the right words for what he had been wanting to say. "Violet's tough, Sherlock. Like John says. Whatever he throws at her, She'll take it. You don't have to worry." He nodded inperceptibly and pushed open the doors.

Sherlock blinked. He knew Violet could take pretty much whatever happened to her. Except death, of course, but it was the obvious clue to their relationship that Moriarty wouldn't kill her. He loved her.

It was odd, somehow, but fitting that the profound relationship between an ex-MI6 girl and a criminally attatched psychopath went directly from not killing and love. It was very Moriarty.

* * *

John was on _fire!_

He couldn't help grinning all through the cab ride. He could see why Sherlock was so cheerful on his Moriarty cases. Jim was really good at this. It gave him a rush, to know he was right. To know this would lead to something, but not knowing entirely. The not knowing just made it sweeter.

Speaking of the basket case, where was he?

"D'you think Moriarty's gonna be in touch this time?" John attempted to say smoothly to Sherlock, who hadn't spoken a word since his converstation with Greg outside the Yard and had hunched down into his coat collars as soon as the cabbie had started the car, his eyes fixed on some point far away.

"No." He said vaguely.

Sherlock didn't elaborate.

"Are you... telling me more about that?" John tried.

"No."

"Okay." There was nothing like Sherlock Holmes to kill a good mood with only one word answers.

The last time they'd had this conversation, Sherlock had been more than half naked and they'd started giggling hysterically soon after. Something told John it would not be happening this time around. He decided to try again. The air between them had instantly turned awkward after the last word.

"Something you want to tell me?"

"No."

"Liar."

"I'm not displaying any tells." Sherlock's eyes darted up to his and instantly settled back into the spot he'd been staring at.

"Because you don't have any." John countered. "Something's bugging you. What did Greg say?"

"He tried to give me a pointless talk about the merits of letting oneself trust others." Sherlock snorted and burrowed deeper into his coat. John almost laughed. Of course, Only Lestrade would even attempt at a talk with Sherlock. He'd always assumed they knew more about each other than the average work associate, but really Greg had been surprised when John told him Sherlock was thirty two at his birthday on the Irene Adler case. Apparently age didn't matter much in Sherlock's world. Wait, of course it didn't.

"Seriously, Sherlock?" John shook his head. "You're going to need more than that before I drop this."

Sherlock considered this, feeling the points of his coat collars. "Hunter." Apparently he didn't see any reason to put a placeholder.

"Her name is Violet. It's not something to shy around."

"I know."

"Then why?"

"Sorry, what?" Sherlock looked up at him with that baffled, disbelieving look with the furrowed brow and the slightly parted lips."You think I'm afraid to say my flatmate's name?"

"No, I'm not asking if you're afraid, I'm asking why you aren't saying her name. Her _real_ name."

"Violet." He said nonchalantly. "Satisfied that I've said Violet's name after not for two hours? Is that on the schedule now?"

Ignoring the last comment, John nudged Sherlock's knee, hard. "Oi. Don't get bitchy, that's the last thing any of us needs right now."

He merely shrugged and turned back to the window, and John did the same. He was so pissed at Sherlock it took a few seconds for him to remember where they were going. He broke the silence a few inutes later when he realized they would need to pay the cabbie and he'd just forgotten his wallet.

* * *

**Sorry for being MIA for a while... hope you haven't lost faith in me :)**

**Anyway this is going to continue for far longer than I expected, as I did not think I'd have become so into the story and filled notebooks and notebooks with sketches and ideas. So, uh, yeah, fair warning!**


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